Conversation With Emily #1209374126

Me (coming upstairs to go to bed, referencing the weather): Something wicked this way comes.

Emily (already in bed, having no context for this statement, other than me walking up stairs to the bedroom): What, are you super gassy or something?

As an aside, we presently have heavy wind, freezing rain, snow, and thunder all at once.  Spring is the most overrated season.  It is either still winter, or muddy and wet.  People only celebrate because it sucks less than another month of extreme winter.  That is a stupid reason to like a season.  I actually like winter better than spring.  

Conversation with Emily #1290

This afternoon Emily and I were talking about basketball for some reason.  And soon we were talking about the rules for some reason (I forgot why).

Me: What would you do if you were a ref in a pro game?

Emily: I don't know.  Just run up and down the court doing this (mimics hand gesture refs use to count time... see ref at the right hand corner in the video below if you don't know what I'm referring to).

Me (very curious what her explanation will be): Why do refs to that?

Emily: To make sure the person with the ball is dribbling it.  When the guy with the ball is dribbling, the ref moves his hand.  When he stops dribbling or passes, the ref stops moving his arm.

Me: What?  Why would they do that?

Emily: So they can keep track if he's supposed to be dribbling or not.  To count if he's traveling.  He's fake dribbling.

This is actually a logical explanation... if the ref was five.  I am going to make a bigger effort to get Emily's explanations as to why refs are doing other things in sports.  She was a softball ump once.  That in and of itself is a funny story now that more than a decade has passed and the parents who wanted to "kill the ump" have had a chance to cool off. Emily also played softball in high school, so she has those rules covered.  But I am really curious to see what she has to say about referee behaviors in football and basketball.

Examples like this, where we come to goofy but logical conclusions are rare in adulthood and it is the closest we can get to seeing the world as kids.  You have a little bit of information about something and you have to tie it into your world knowledge.  Just like Charlotte thinks I drink black water, the Mississippi River runs down our sidewalk, and Suze is on every airplane on earth, there are still times when we can make similar crazy ass conclusions, like refs making like the Crown Prince of Baseball mimicking the players while they play.  I'm sure we all have this sweet spot of some enough information to make inferences about something, but not enough to make them accurately.

I just seredipitously happened to stumble across Emily's area: refs and sports.  But it is awesome when Emily does it because she has this was of presenting her theory as if it's God's truth.

Conversation with Charlotte #412382

Tonight we were choosing books for bedtime.  She had her heart set on The Little Engine That Could which is kind of a narrow book and splits its time upstairs and downstairs.  Not only does this make it hard to find but hard to keep track of.  Really Charlotte?  Out of all the books you had to pick one of the narrowest and transient books you have.  So Charlotte and I spent a few minutes looking for the book.   We couldn't find it, but Charlotte is learning a little too quickly how I like to communicate with Emily at bedtime when Charlotte and I are upstairs and Emily is downstairs.

Me: I'm not even sure the book is up here Charlotte.  It might be downstairs.

Charlotte (runs to the doorway and shouts down the stairs): EM! HELP! BOOK!

Looks like we need to introduce the "whoever does the talking does the walking rule" around Parker-Nawrocki household... starting with me.

Overheard

Emily, while holding Charlotte, "You smell like beer and poop."

I'll take responsibility for my daughter smelling like beer at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning, but she is going to have to take personal responsibility for the poop smell; that one's on her.  Literally.

Conversation With Emily #902

State of the Household Address

As some of you may know, our annual ice dams created a problem for the first time since we've owned this house.  Water got into our walls and for nine days the stairs to both the basement and the second floor (a finished attic) were blocked by plastic curtains and machines (humidifiers, fans, and desiccants) the size of a trash bin.  There were two machines at the top and bottom of each stairway.  Our refigerator was blocked.  And it was as loud as flying in a prop plane, 24 hours a day, for nine days.

In the end, the professional wall dryers (i.e. Water Mitigation Specialist, as our friends at ServPro would call themselves) ended up doing something I could have done: punched big holes in our walls to dry them out.  So our life this last week has been a little chaotic.  Yesterday ServPro deemed our walls dry and we now have to get bids to repair our walls.

Needless to say, this weekend we have been using to slowly get our life back to normal.  Here is where we are at:

Me (sitting down on the couch next to Emily): What am I sitting on?

Emily: Random stuff.  Oooh a clipboard.

I Drive Em Crazy*

*Conversation with Emily #812

I got ten, maybe 11, smiles out of Charlotte in a five minute span today.  It was pretty awesome.  Well awesome for me.  After telling Emily what was going on, she said, "Is that really the only way you can get her to smile?  I think she's getting sick of it."

What Emily really meant to say is that she herself was getting sick of my smile elicitation method, not Chatlotte.  My secret?  To sing the chorus to this song in falsetto, over and over.

Conversation with Emily #891233

Today while feeding Charlotte, she kept on eating and eating and eating.  I figured she'd be done so I'd put her down, but then she'd keep fussing.  Finally after giving her yet another of pumped milk, she fell asleep three swallows into the bottle.

 So I said "Charlotte it looks like your eyes are bigger than your stomach."

To which Emily responded, "Actually, they probably are."

And she is right.  Newborn's bellies are the size of a marble.  Crazy.  Since Charlotte's full-term due date is still a a week away, her eyes are indeed bigger than her stomach.

So in the literal sense I was correct.  But in the figurative sense, I couldn't have been more wrong.  After sleeping for about another minute, Charlotte perked up and drank/ate another 30 mL of milk out of the bottle.  You go girl.

Conversation With Emily #238190

A little background first.

Background piece #1.  About six weeks ago, I was at home having a night of shallow sleep.  Emily was in her hospital bed, 15 miles away from home, allowing the menagerie full access to Emily's side of the bed.  As I went from being mostly asleep to very awake, I realized I had been sleep-contemplating pregnancy and all the complications that come from it.  And in this light sleep-deep thoughts mode, I wondered why the most important part of how we propagate our species is also the most fragile and complex.

So when I reached the point where I was fully awake, I found myself sitting fully upright in bed saying quite loudly, "Pancho, intelligent design, my ass."

For someone whose sleep thoughts are usually verbalized with statements like "that's horseshit" (according to Emily), this was pretty profound stuff coming from me.

Consequently whatever twist and turn each day brings in our journey with Charlotte, I will often remark, "intelligent design, my ass."

Background piece #2.  Emily's cousin Laurie informed us that when you change your baby's diaper and wipe her bum, the wiping motion stimulates the baby to poop again.

Conversation #238190
Sitting in the NICU with Charlotte.

Me: Man that is messed up.  Why would wiping a butt make a baby poop more?  There's no good reason for that.  That is one unintelligent design.

Emily: Well it's not like that happens with grown-ups, so that's pretty smart.

That made me laugh.  It also reminded me of when Emily wondered what the world would be like if adults cried when they were hungry, just like babies do.  Like she said, afternoon rush hour would be hilarious.  All these grown-ups sitting in cars all alone, stuck in traffic, crying their unintelligently designed asses off.

Conversation With Emily #672

Our friend Chris posted the following link to Emily's Facebook wall.

Link

This lead to the following conversation.

Me: I hate that guy.  He makes guys like me look bad.

Emily: He probably doesn't even have a job.  Plus you know I hate having people handle my food.  I'd never eat that.   I'm so glad you didn't do that for me.

Looks like I found the right person to spend the rest of my life with.  Her hang-ups mesh perfectly with my laziness.